Published 3:22 pm, Tuesday, December 5, 2006

2006-12-05 16:22:00 PST -- A possible confrontation over the future of People's Park in Berkeley was averted when UC Berkeley officials told community leaders there are no plans to level the earthen mounds at the west end of the park so police can get a better view of drug activity.

The berms had become a topic of debate as a result of concerns by city police that they are obstacles to drug enforcement. They are a series of low mounds formed from torn-up asphalt when the park was developed by volunteers almost 40 years ago and later covered with earth to form part of a community garden.

A meeting Monday of the People's Park Community Advisory Board to discuss the issue opened with the acting chair, John Selawsky, reading an e-mail from a university official that Cal "has no plans to bulldoze the berms or anything else."

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Park regulars said they feared the university still contemplated changes that would spoil the park's garden, make no dent on crime and possibly spark a rebellion to preserve a national icon of community development.

Neighbors said they would like to use the park, too, but don't feel it's welcoming or accessible to them.

The full text of the university's e-mail to the board indicates Cal is moving ahead with plans to improve the park.

"The campus must take seriously the concerns of the Berkeley and UC police, neighbors, Telegraph (Avenue) merchants, and the community in general concerning drugs and crime at the park," according to the e-mail. "Over the past few months, university staff have been pruning and thinning vegetation to increase visibility, light and surveillance, and we will continue to do so.

"We hope this will decrease criminal activity and drug use at the park. If it does not, then we will come back to the advisory board to discuss other steps."

The 2.8-acre vacant lot that became People's Park is nothing if not a symbol. In 1969, it was the scene of a bloody clash between students and police and National Guard troops. It was later resurrected by volunteers as an oasis of freedom on the edge of the campus.

But it's also an underused urban park by conventional standards and therefore a planning problem for the university and the city and a rising source of frustration for neighbors. Add the realities of drug use and homelessness and the problem becomes extremely tender and complicated.

"Bulldozing the berms would be a very bad move," said Terri Compost, a long-time People's Park volunteer gardener. "I'm pretty convinced destroying the berms is not going to increase our safety. "The big thing about People's Park -- change can happen but it needs to be done with respect. Change is possible, but how things change at People's Park is crucial."

Drug enforcement in the park is best done by police on foot, and removing the berms would create new troubles, said Michael Diehl, a community organizer. "It's basically saying class war, and we're not going to let you do that," he said.

Andy Kraemer said he graduated from Cal two years ago. "I learned as much at People's Park as I did at Cal," he said.

The park, he said, is "one of the best things about Berkeley."

Ray Gibson, who said he has lived on the streets of Berkeley for the past five years, said he recently earned a degree from the College of Alameda and was able to complete his school work largely because he had access to the park to read and write.

People's Park, he said, is not so very strange. "If it goes on in the world about you it probably goes in People's Park," he said, adding that the reverse is true as well.

Sharon Hudson of the Willard Neighborhood Association implored park regulars to be open to change. "When you don't allow change in the park that would allow 90 percent of the people to feel safe and comfortable there, that's wrong," she said.

Debbie Moore, who is known as "The Naked Lady," said she and others are prepared to hold the ground with their bodies if it should come to that. "We're happy to create safety and change on a human level, with human-sized tools," she said.

"I've been safe in the park for 15 years without any clothes. To me it's a spiritual ground."

The advisory board is soliciting proposals for a consultant to bring everybody together to talk about the park's future. The discussion may lead to a redesign of the park, board member Selawsky said.

"I want that park to be a viable urban park," he said.

Hudson said she walked through the park after the meeting and found "many parts of it quite pleasant."

"This issue is really not about berms," Hudson said Tuesday, "it's about whether this park is going to be a public space or a private space. The vast majority of Berkeleyans want this to be a public space.

"But the homeless, they don't have a private space elsewhere and this may be the only place they feel is their private space and they feel they belong. Unfortunately what happens is, because it is their private space, other people feel they don't belong.

"This is what's not right -- to have a park you're afraid of. That's just an absurdity."